Today's protest against Ward Churchill -- at CU

Eyewitness report from a friend

I did manage to get to the protest at CU. I thought I'd tell you my experiences for your own information. Also, if you want to put it on the blog, that's ok.

The protest lasted from 10-2. I arrived at noon and at first, it was difficult to find the protesters because the counter-protesters, supporters of Churchill, were so numerous and were moving around, so they seemed to be everywhere. They also were holding signs up high. The College Republicans, sponsors of the protest, had their posters in one fixed place.

When I could finally identify the two sides, I estimated about 10-15 protesters and about 30 or so counter-protesters (Some of the College Republicans had gone over to the building where Churchill taught to hand out information). There were also quite a few media people.

Most of the counter-protesters had signs urging free speech. There were at least two students who claimed to be College Republicans supporting Churchill. But the College Republican group told me they had discovered these people were actually members of the College Democrats who were posing as Republicans.

Isiah Lechowit of the College Republicans spoke to the crowd with a bullhorn. Since their group sponsored the protest, they received the bullhorn from the university. The majority of the time, the counter-protesters drowned out his words with their loud screams. He offered to answer any questions and did answer a few, but not many people asked questions. They yelled for him to hand over the bullhorn. But they were already louder than he was. Though they claimed to be for free speech, since they would not allow him to talk, they appeared to me to be for free speech only for themselves. A few of the counter-protesters got right in front of him, actually "in his face", interrupting Lechowit.

One counter-protester shouted, "Denial is a river in Sudan." I have no idea what that meant unless he had gotten mixed up about where The River Nile is. One woman who appeared to be Asian, yelled at me, "Do you know how often I've suffered racism?" and "What race are you?" and "How many Iraqis have you spoken to?". Again, I'm not sure what those questions had to do with the protest, but, as far as I could tell, she and her friend were saying that, as a white person, my opinion didn't count and that the media is biased against liberals, so they couldn't trust anything that is said about Iraq without talking to Iraqi individuals. When she called me ignorant, I abandoned the "conversation".

I did encounter one non-aggressive counter-protester, a woman with whom I was able to calmly have a discussion, but she seemed to be the only one. She said she wanted us to know that not all the counter-protesters were like the majority who did not want to listen.

I wondered what the "silent majority" of students felt, those who passed by, not taking sides.

Many thanks to Mimi for letting us know whassup on campus.